She shakes her head. “And like I said, she wasn’t interested. He came on strong, and that didn’t work on her.”

  “Do you remember what he looked like or anything about him?”

  “No, I didn’t see him. I was cheering,” she says. “Sorry. No, wait. I’m . . . Give me just a . . . I’m pretty sure he said he was a cop because that freaked her out a little. And he had one of those names . . . You know . . . The way he acted fit his name . . . What was it? You know like Tyler or Trevor. What was it? You know the type. Oh. Cody. It was Cody.”

  41

  I’m on my way back to meet with Reggie and the other investigators about Cody Faircloth and the other recent evidence we’ve all turned up when Carla calls.

  “Hey John,” she says.

  “How are you?” I ask. “How’re you feeling?”

  “I’m okay. Are you mad at me?”

  “No,” I say. “Not at all. What makes you ask that?”

  “Because of what I’m doing,” she says. “Because I wasn’t honest with you about it.”

  “I’m not mad at you,” I say. “I understand how challenging all this is.”

  “I still want you and Anna to adopt my baby,” she says.

  “We still want to,” I say, “but it’s got to be okay with the father too.”

  “But if I tell him, there’s a chance Rick will find out,” she says. “That’s my fiancé’s name.”

  “I think you should tell them both,” I say. “Be honest with everyone involved. You owe it to the father, and you don’t want to start your marriage keeping secrets like this from your husband.”

  “I just can’t. You don’t understand. It’s just not possible. Please, just this once . . . for me . . . Please. Don’t do the right thing. Just this once. For me. It’s not like I’m asking for some big bad thing.”

  “You don’t think I understand?” I say.

  “How could you, really?” she says.

  “I’ll tell you how. Do you know how long Susan kept Johanna a secret from me? Do you know how unfair that was—to me and to Johanna? Do you remember how much time I missed? How many years? How sad that made me—still makes me? I can’t get any of that time back. Susan made a decision that impacted my life in the hugest way possible and never told me, and it’s the single worst thing anyone has ever done to me in my entire life. No father should ever have to experience that. No child either. So I understand far better than you think.”

  “I meant from my perspective, from the mother’s point of view,” she says. “Besides, my baby’s biological father is not you, John. He’s nothing like you. He won’t care. He’ll be as glad to get rid of the baby as he was me. You can’t judge the rest of the world based on what you would do or how you would feel. You’re . . . He’s nothing like you.”

  “If you don’t think he’ll want the baby, then you have nothing to fear from telling him,” I say. “Just come clean—the way you did with Anna and me. It’ll—”

  “I just can’t, John. I understand why you can’t adopt him under these circumstances, but please understand why I can’t do what you’re asking. I’ll have to find someone else to adopt my baby. Goodbye, John. Please forgive me. I hope someday you’ll understand.”

  After she ends the call, I call Anna.

  “I just spoke with Carla,” I say.

  “And?”

  “She’s not willing to tell the biological father,” I say. “Says she just can’t.”

  “Maybe she’ll change her mind once she thinks about it some more.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think we can count on that.”

  “No, I agree, we can’t.”

  “She should tell the father,” I say.

  “I know.”

  “We’re right to insist that she does,” I say.

  “I know.”

  “But . . . if you want to adopt him anyway, I’m willing to.”

  “You are?”

  “I am.”

  “Are you sure?” she asks.

  “Positive. I’m pulling up to the sheriff’s office now. We can talk about it more tonight, but the decision is yours. I’ll go with whatever you decide.”

  “But—”

  “I will,” I say. “And I’ll never give it a second thought.”

  “Now I know you’re lying,” she says.

  I laugh. “Well, I’ll never mention it again.”

  “Thank you, John. I know what it means, know what you’re doing and why.”

  “Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

  “You love me more than your convictions and principles,” she says. “Which is another way of saying you love me more than yourself.”

  42

  “We’ve got to look at the boyfriend—What’s his name? Jarred Martin—and the coach, but we’ve got to take a very hard look at Cody Faircloth too,” Reggie is saying.

  We are in her office—me, Jessica Young, Tony Ford, Darlene Weatherly, and Arnie Ward, who has just returned to work after eye surgery.

  I’ve just shared with them what Kay and Megan told me.

  “If we can find the baby—or the fetus, if she didn’t carry it to term,” Jessica says, “we can determine paternity through DNA. If we can get the three guys to submit swabs.”

  “Speaking of DNA,” Reggie says. “You know how behind FDLE is and how we’re still waiting for all our labs? They got a grant from the justice department to use private labs to catch up, so we’ll be getting all our results back sooner than expected.”

  “That’s great news,” Jessica says.

  “Yes, it is,” Tony says. “Thank you, Uncle Sam.”

  “The lieutenant and I are going to interview Faircloth tomorrow,” Reggie says. “Let me know anything specific you want covered. I think we have to consider him a potential suspect and or witness on both cases. Everyone look out for each other and watch your backs. If he was making threats before, no telling how he’s gonna respond to being questioned and possibly suspended, pending the investigation.”

  She pauses, but no one says anything.

  “How are we coming on other fronts?” she asks.

  I tell them about what Captain Jack said and the cases he gave me copies of.

  “Anything in it?” Reggie asks.

  “I’m still going through them. Hope to finish tonight. So far I’m not seeing a pattern that connects them. They’re all over the place in terms of age and race and size and hair and eye color. The only thing that might possibly link some of them are the locations where they were found, manner and cause of death, and the way the bodies were disposed of. But only a few have all three things in common. I’ll see what else I can find, but it’s not looking particularly promising. He is right about one thing, though. We’ve got way too many unsolved homicides in our state and national parks. If there is some sort of pattern, I hope we can find it.”

  “We should all take a look at it,” Darlene says. “The more eyes, the better. I’ll give them a look after you finish.”

  “Sounds good. Thanks.”

  “What else?” Reggie says.

  “Things are progressing in our case too,” Tony says. “We’ve been looking into the victim’s financial dealings, following the money. I’ve got a couple of FDLE analysts trying to trace the cash and looking into some of his old clients and his previous partners and their firm. It’s early days, but they’ve already found some anomalies, so . . . that could be promising.”

  “Great. What else?”

  Darlene says, “We’ve been looking into an old case against Chris that fell apart. He had been having an affair with a young woman in Tallahassee named Ashley Fountain. He set up a guy named Ronnie Cardigan. Shot and killed another young man named Karl Jason.”

  I had told Darlene about the case and how it might be a good idea to look into everyone connected, but until this moment I didn’t know she had.

  “We thought it would be a good idea to look at all the people Chris has crossed or killed or destroyed in some way,” she continues. “Look at them—the ones that are still alive—or their families to see if Chris’s murder could be retribution for something he’s done.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Reggie says.

  “It was all hers,” Tony says.

  “Anyway, it’s a long list and it’s taking some time, but it’s showing some promise. I should have more to share by the end of the week.”

  “Nice work, Darlene,” Reggie says. “First class police work.”

  “Thank you, but it’s all just a team effort. We’re also taking a very close look at Randa Raffield,” she adds. “Supposedly she was in a holding cell in the Gulf County jail instead of in the Liberty County jail where she should have been when Chris was killed.”

  “Really?” Arnie says. “That’s got to move her to the top of the suspect list, doesn’t it? Security in the jail here is a joke.”

  Tony nods. “We’ve got a lot of promising suspects. Like Darlene said there’s no shortage of people with motives. This prick was a piece of work. We’ve still got the Raffield woman on the list, but she’s got a lot of company. We’re not ready to rule anyone out just yet.”

  “Because we’ve found a connection between our two victims,” Reggie says. “I think we’ve got to consider the very real possibility that the same killer or killers were involved in both crimes. I know we’ve had it as a possibility we were open to, but the fact that Faircloth and maybe even the couple—what’re their names? The Tates—could be tied to both of them, means there’s actually a good chance they are connected.”

  Everyone nods but Tony Ford.

  “I want you all to coordinate even more and communicate with each other more—especially in those areas where the two homicide victims or their lives intersect.”

  “I have to say, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Tony says. “I think to maintain the integrity of our case we have to keep it separate from the other one.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You’re putting me in an incredibly difficult situation here, but I’m just gonna say it and let the chips fall where they may. I haven’t ruled out Investigator Jordan as a suspect in my case.” He looks over at me. “No offense. I’m just being honest. I’m not accusing you of anything, but . . . If we’re gonna sit in here and say Deputy Faircloth is a suspect we have to have the integrity to say you are a suspect.”

  I nod. “I agree.”

  He looks back at Reggie. “And do you know who I suspect even more than John? His wife and father and some of his other friends. It was a mistake to assign him to the Rebecca Blackburn case—especially if the two cases are connected. Don’t compound that mistake by folding these two investigations into one another.”

  When he finishes, no one says anything. Reggie looks at me.

  “You can send me back to Tallahassee if you want to,” Tony says, “but that’ll only make you all look like you’re covering up for someone you know. And I’m afraid if you do—especially with the noise Lyle Taunton is making and the suits he’s filing—eventually, the governor will be forced to call for an independent, outside investigation, and if something like that happens, you could all be indicted—for obstruction and conspiracy if nothing else.”

  43

  “I really don’t want to lose my job,” Tad Barnes says. “Decent job’s hard to come by in this little town, and I like this one. And believe it or not, I’m pretty good at it.”

  Darlene and I are talking with the correctional officer in charge of Randa Raffield’s custody the night Chris was killed.

  He asked us to meet him as far away from the jail as we could so no one would see us talking to him.

  We are at the April Bennet Memorial Garden inside the Remington James Wildlife Sanctuary where Anna and I and our girls have just taken a walk and watered and weeded a few of the flower beds—something we do about once a week as part of our commitment to and stewardship over this sacred place.

  Anna continues to weed one of the beds, as the girls play nearby, while Darlene and I talk to Tad.

  “We’re not looking to cost you your job,” Darlene says.

  “But if it gets out that I . . .”

  “We’ll try our best to keep it just between us,” I say. “Just tell us what happened that night.”

  “Well . . . The thing is . . . we ain’t used to havin’ any women there—not very often anyway—and we ain’t used to having anybody up in that front holding cell at night.”

  “We know,” Darlene says. “It’s an unusual situation, easy for unusual things to happen.”

  “She was such a nice, mannerly lady,” he says. “Most of the women we get are crack whores, all strung out and shit, but this was a very classy woman—smart, polite, respectful, nice. She didn’t cause me a second of trouble. My policy is the Golden Rule. You treat me with respect, I’m gonna treat you with respect.”

  “And that’s what you did,” Darlene says.

  “Yeah. She said she gets claustrophobic could I please leave the cell door open . . . and . . . well . . . the thing is the outside doors are locked, so she’s still locked in, what does it matter her cell door is open, right?”

  Darlene and I both nod, as if we agree.

  “So I left it open.”

  Which means there was only a single door between Randa Raffield and the outside world.

  “Did you see her go out of her cell at any time?” Darlene asks.

  “We had sixteen inmates in the back, and we were shorthanded that night,” he says. “Sixteen inmates in the open bay dorm. They required our attention and our . . . The thing is . . . I’m not used to havin’ someone up in that front holding cell. I got called to the back. Couple of inmates were fighting, and well, I stayed back there because I . . . the truth is . . . I forgot we had somebody in that front cell.”

  “How long were you gone?” I ask.

  “Most of my shift. Settled everyone down. Ate my dinner. Did lights out. And then in the middle of the night, I’m sitting there, and it hits me. Shit! We’ve got an inmate up front. So I go and check on her.”

  “And?” Darlene says.

  “She’s not in her cell. I start to freak. I’m like, Tad, you stupid son of—but then she appeared at the side door and—”

  “From the outside?” Darlene says.

  He frowns. “Yeah.”

  “She was outside the jail,” I say, “coming back in?”

  “Yeah. She said she couldn’t sleep, so she went out to have a smoke to help calm her nerves before going back to bed.”

  “Did she have cigarettes and a light on her?” I ask. “Did she smell like she had been smoking?”

  He frowns again. “Didn’t register at the time, but no . . . neither. But remember, she was back inside. I wasn’t thinking anything, but she’s still in custody, whatta I care if she went out for a walk or a smoke or to gaze at the fuckin’ stars?”

  “So she went back into her cell and stayed in there the rest of the night?” Darlene asks.

  “Yeah,” he says. “I know she did because—”

  “What is it?”

  “Shit, man,” he says. “Son of a—”

  “You closed the cell door, didn’t you?” I say. “She didn’t have a problem with it when she came back in, did she?”

  “Didn’t even register,” he says. “I didn’t even think about it. I just closed the cell door and locked it and told her goodnight.”

  “It’s a long shot,” Darlene says.

  Tad Barnes is gone. Evening is giving way to night, and the mosquitoes are coming out of the swamp. We’ve walked over to our cars and are going over what he said before we go. Anna and the girls are already in the car with the air conditioner running.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “She had plenty of time to do it. All evening unsupervised.”

  “Yeah, but how did she get all the way to the campground?” she says. “That’s a thirty-minute drive. One way.”

  “She had the time,” I say. “No one I know is more resourceful.”

  “You really think she did it?”

  “I really think she could’ve done it.”

  “Well, I agree in theory she could have, but . . . that’s a far piece from actually doing it.”

  “She said she was going to,” I say. “We now know she didn’t just have the motive. She had the opportunity too.”

  “But did she have the means?” she asks. “Was she able to get to the park, do the deed, and get back without being seen?”

  “Maybe somebody did see her,” I say. “But didn’t think anything of it at the time. Didn’t know who she was or that she was supposed to be in jail.”

  “It’s possible. Ol’ Tad didn’t know the significance of certain things until he saw them in a new context.”

  “We need to go back to the witnesses—especially Evelyn Hillman—and get a detailed description of every vehicle that pulled into the park that night,” I say. “Then see if there were any down here that match the descriptions. See if anyone’s car was stolen or if anything was out of place in it when they got back in after their shift at the jail.”

  “As I said, it’s a long shot, but yeah, we need to check it out. Just to be sure.”

  And then it hits me.

  “What is it?” she asks.

  “Think about how many patrol cars are parked over by the jail,” I say. “What if she took one of them? Nobody would mess with her. She could monitor dispatch and the other deputies the entire time. What if who Evelyn Hillman thought was Cody Faircloth doing his rounds was actually Randa Raffield there to kill Chris?”

  44

  That night as I am about to look at the other female victims found in parks around the state for similarities to Rebecca Blackburn, I glance at the phone log as I move it to the side.

  I see the number that looks familiar to me again and wonder where I know it from.

  It’s frustrating that I can’t remember, and I want to hit the table, but Anna and the girls are asleep.

  Pushing my frustration to the side, for now, I dig back into the case files Captain Jack gave me.

 

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